


Soul Asylum

by murderlight



Category: Bleach
Genre: Body Horror, Bugs & Insects, Candy, Halloween, Haunted Houses, Horror, Hospitals, Humor, M/M, Slash, and then horror horror, fun horror, hand holding, theft of aforementioned candy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-31
Updated: 2018-10-31
Packaged: 2019-08-14 17:32:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16497071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/murderlight/pseuds/murderlight
Summary: Kicked out of the house for the evening, rumours of a disturbance at the old abandoned Karakura asylum give Ichigo something to do on Halloween night. When it all goes terribly wrong, a familiar face reluctantly joins him on a journey deep into the heart of fear.





	Soul Asylum

Ichigo didn’t really do specific callouts as a shinigami, but the recent, strangely persistent rumours around town said that there was a presence in the old mental hospital on the outskirts of Karakura. It had been condemned for decades to his knowledge, and he was pretty sure that its demolition was halted after a construction worker had died on site. Nobody had been back since, and the city council hadn’t pushed to have the land back so it just stood there; a mouldering old vine-wrapped hospital prison hidden deep in the detritus of neglect.

It was just enough of a cheesy backstory to breed some really dumb stories about ghosts and demons, and with it being Halloween night Ichigo decided to clean the place out before anyone got the bright idea of breaking in for thrills and got themselves hurt. Doing his civic duty, and all of that. It had nothing to do with Isshin sternly telling him to get off his ass and do something useful for the night because Ryuuken and Urahara were coming over to play cards.

The night was coming over cloudy, with big dark thunderheads looming ominously overhead. The moon was hidden, but it wasn’t so dark that the silhouette of the hospital didn’t show up against the night sky, looming black and decrepit where the ceiling had sagged and crumbled in places. Ichigo hated the place instantly.

He hated it a lot more when the wind picked up, sending leaves clattering across the cracked concrete pavement. The first droplets of rain that hit his shihakushou were fat and slow, promising much more where they came from—and soon.

“Fucking great.” Ichigo ran to the chained double doors before he could get too wet. “Halloween night, a creepy haunted asylum, and now it’s about to start raining cats and dogs.” A swift slide and jerk of his shortsword under the chains sent them slithering to the ground in a heap of rusted metal links. Ichigo ignored the weird feeling in his gut and pushed them open before he could start to have second thoughts about the whole excursion.

It was just a stupid building.

Ichigo stared down the long black throat of the entrance corridor. Dank, mouldy-smelling air hit him in the face, making him think of basements and stagnant creek water. It faded after a moment, but there was no avoiding the sight up ahead. It was a long, endless black tunnel littered with overturned hospital bed frames, their reinforced straps fluttering with the sudden gale of fresh air that blew down the hall. Dirt streaked the stained linoleum. Cobwebs were gathered like veils in every corner. A few genuine spiderwebs hung from the ceilings, occupied by fat black bodies that seemed to watch him for movement. Ahead, rodents squeaked. Something skittered in the ceiling.

The hospital still held all kinds of life, Ichigo thought, thinning his mouth into a tense line. And they all knew they had a visitor.

“Whatever. I’ve seen worse than this in the garden shed at home.” Ichigo stepped through the doors, and into the great dark unknown. Somewhere inside was a lost soul, and all the creep factor in the world wasn’t going to keep him from—

Zangetsu was ripped from his back and waist in a rush of horrendous, malevolent force that passed through his entire body and punched out the other side. Ichigo felt his stomach turn to water the moment the blades were parted from him, clanging hard and heavy on the pavement outside while he stayed standing. Both blades, it had taken both of his blades as he crossed the threshold. Gasping, he turned to run outside and get them.

_can’t you hear the screaming_

The voice spoke behind his ear: a whisper between confidants. A whisper with no breath.

The doors slammed shut, sealing him inside. Blackness swallowed him whole as Ichigo’s eyes tried uselessly to adjust. He couldn’t see. He couldn’t see.

A cold touch on his neck.

_welcome home, ichigo_

Oh fuck.

Fuck.

“How do you know my name?” he asked the darkness, and his voice only shook a little.

No answer. Nothing but a receding laugh and a chill like ice crawling down his spine; a sensation he’d always thought was just a figure of speech. Then he was alone in the dark, and as frightened as he’d ever been in his entire life.

It was just a spirit, Ichigo told himself, blindly feeling for the doors again. Just an angry, restless ghost who’d been alone too long, probably. Could be bordering on hollowfication. It was his bread and butter, his job, there wasn’t anything to be afraid of. But when he pushed on the doors to open them again, a surge of vicious, possessive hatred pushed back against him, propelling him away from the entrance and deep into the main corridor. Rain was pattering against the cracked panes of glass that dotted the walls. They were covered by metal grates that threw grids of weak shadow across the hall. The moonlight was too weak to do more than cast lines across dirty flooring and mouldy walls.

Willing himself not to give into ordinary human panic, Ichigo tried to find his logic.

If he was sealed in, the only thing he could do was go deeper. Find the spirit. Convince it to let him out so he could perform konsou and send it on. It wasn’t a great plan, considering the voices whispering to him and the psychically sealed doors, but…well, fuck it, he didn’t have any other ideas.

“I can do this,” Ichigo told himself, swallowing hard. “No big deal.” He stepped toward the heart of the asylum, sensing nothing, breathing dust and his own acrid fear.

The doors behind him slammed open again, this time so hard they bounced off the walls. Ichigo screamed like a ten year-old girl and covered his head with his arms, spinning to see what new horrors the place had to visit upon him.

“Squeal a little higher, Kurosaki. See if you can break the glass.”

It was Grimmjow.

Unbelievably, Grimmjow stood in the doorway of the hospital with his little finger jammed in his ear, other hand shoved deep in the pocket of his black catsuit. Even lit by the flicker of distant lightning his curious frown didn’t seem overly threatening, just his usual combination of pissy and bored when he wasn’t fighting anyone. His hair was hanging over his forehead, probably wet from the rain. His zanpakutou still hung at his waist.

He was instantly the best thing Ichigo had ever seen.

“This place is fucking haunted,” Ichigo blurted out, “and I am getting the hell out of here. Fuck Halloween. I didn’t sign on for this shit.”

Grimmjow tilted his head. His whole silhouette projected mockery.

“You’re a shinigami. This is exactly what you fuckin’ signed on for.” Scratching his head, Grimmjow eyed the inside of the hospital. “Came to see why my pesquisa had your reiatsu out in the middle of nowhere on Halloween, and you’re in the nuthouse screaming like a pussy.” He stepped into the hospital and sniffed the air. “Least you haven’t pissed yourself. Why’re your swords out on the—”

Ichigo remembered it the instant it happened. With a snap of white leather Grimmjow’s sword were jerked outside, taking his belts with it.

“Get the door!” he yelled to Grimmjow, who snarled and reached out with a long arm to catch the edge of the metal handle and yank with all his strength before it slammed.

It did exactly fuck all. The door clanged shut like the entrance to hell until it sealed, repelling Grimmjow away so hard he slammed into Ichigo. They both hit the filthy floor and rolled through the dust and dead bugs, sliding deep into the corridor. Coughing in the solid darkness, trying to catch his breath with Grimmjow half-sprawled on his legs, Ichigo felt the temperature drop around him like a curtain of ice.

_one by one_

Goosebumps broke out on his skin.

_two by two_

The voice crawled inside Ichigo’s clothes, touching him with freezing hands.

_we are all coming for y o u_

Something skittered across his chest. Memories of fat spiders in their webs flew back to Ichigo so hard he bolted upright and accidentally punched Grimmjow somewhere important, judging by the yelp he let out.

“Fuck is this place?” Grimmjow practically howled. His dim outline was having some sort of seizure. Scratching. He was scratching himself everywhere like he’d rolled in an ant nest. “Who the fuck just talked to me?!”

“I don’t know!” Ichigo yelled right back. “They said it was haunted, I came to cleanse the spirit here, and now we’re trapped in a labyrinth of spider-filled crazy death and it stole our swords. Why the fuck did you come inside, you stupid asshole?”

“Because you were here!” Shoving him away, Grimmjow jumped to his feet. The hand that blindly slapped Ichigo’s face felt around down his shoulder and arm until it could grab his hand and haul him up too. “Fuck you, Kurosaki, this isn’t the fucking Halloween I had in mind!”

“What do you want me to do about it? Hold a fucking seance for the ghost stealing our shit?”

“No,  _you_   find the fucking ghost,  _I'll_  eat it, then I can get on with stealing the rest of my goddamn candy!”

Ichigo knew that being a shinigami meant protecting spirits from hollows, but just then the idea of letting Grimmjow eat the crazy fuck polluting the hospital was pretty damn appealing. Besides, Grimmjow wasn’t letting go of his hand right away, and Ichigo wasn’t about to force him. If they didn’t talk about it, it wasn’t cowardice.

The corridor was nothing but dim outlines and shapes—and small, suspicious noises that said small living creatures were writhing around in the dark, probably looking at them. Grimmjow was just a black smudge next to him. If it wasn’t for the hard grip of his fingers Ichigo would think he was a ghost himself. Slowly his words caught up to the present.

“Candy? You’ve been trick or treating? You’re a hollow!”

“So? It’s fuckin’ Halloween, you dumb shit. One night of the year an arrancar can fuck around in plain sight of the spiritually aware.” There was a loaded silence. Then, “I like candy. Sticky little bastards don’t need that much. I’m doin’ em a favour by helping myself.” The hand gripping Ichigo’s abruptly vanished, leaving him feeling strangely bereft. “C’mon, let’s smoke this asshole.” Grimmjow’s voice was already fading with distance.

“Wait up,” Ichigo said, startled into jogging through the dark after him. If anything, the sound of footsteps seemed to speed up to leave him behind. “Hey! Grimmjow!”

Something about the noise of Grimmjow’s boots seemed to reverberate in Ichigo’s ears, losing direction. Had he gone left? Right? Or maybe into the room ahead with the swinging doors. One of them was propped open with what seemed like an overturned wheelchair. Through there? Ichigo strained his ears to listen, listen, listen.

A hand clapped down on his shoulder, tight and urgent.

“Shit, Grimm—FUCK!”

The apparition glowed with sickly green light, half its face eaten away by maggots. Empty pits where eyes should have been stared deep into Ichigo’s from mere inches away. Heart thudding in his mouth, Ichigo almost gagged on the sudden smell of rotten eggs and fetid smoke. The man—if it was a man—opened his mouth far beyond the limitations of a human and spat up a slow reel of IV tubing. Some of it was looped around his neck like a rope.

“I-I can help,” Ichigo said thinly. Sweat was sour and cold on his brow. “You don’t have to suffer here.”

The man vanished like a light had been snuffed out. This time the darkness felt like a blanket pressing on his face, filling his mouth and smothering him. A thrill of pure animal fear ribboned through him for an instant, sharp and lonely in his bones. He couldn’t hear footsteps anymore. He couldn’t hear anything anymore.

“Fuckin—where did you go?”

The voice seemed to come from deep underwater. It didn’t sound right; it was tight with strain. No, not strain, it almost sounded like—

A body bumped hard into Ichigo, and this time it felt alive. Relatively speaking. The oppressive air fell away in an instant, letting him breathe again.

“Kurosaki?” Grimmjow said urgently, shaking him. Hands clutched his shoulders hard enough to bruise. “There’s something, something _talked_ and it knew my fuckin’ name, and there was a dead bitch on a bed that swiped at me and I stepped on something crunchy. Don’t you fucking walk off on me again, you stupid shit! I can’t see in this fuckin’ dark!”

Ichigo lifted his numb hands and patted his way around Grimmjow’s chest. Under his palm he felt a hollow heart galloping with fear. Somehow, that felt like the most bizarre part of all. Nothing scared Grimmjow, he was too obnoxious to be scared. Which meant whatever was happening was real, he wasn’t crazy, and the stupid blanket thing was ghosts being assholes. Okay. It was okay. They couldn’t actually hurt them.

“You’re the one who walked away on me,” Ichigo said in confusion, feeling like he was waking up from a cloudy dream. He dragged in a fortifying breath of stale hospital air. “And can’t you just make a cero or something to light the place up?”

“More tempted to blow this place to hell,” Grimmjow said mutinously, like it wouldn’t absolutely rebound and kill them both instead. But he lifted a hand away from Ichigo’s shoulder, and soon a red orb was glowing above the palm of Grimmjow’s hand, painting them both in shades of carmine and crimson. The light was about the size of a marble.

“It’s kinda small,” Ichigo said critically.

“Shut the fuck up. This place is interfering with my reiryoku.” Grimmjow sounded about as happy about that as expected. He turned and looked around the corridor. “Looks like the ghost shit is over again. Think it’s running on timed intervals?”

“I—I dunno,” Ichigo replied, surprised Grimmjow had even thought of that. “But let’s stay close this time.”

“Fuckin’ fine by me. If I see that ghost bitch again I’m gonna put my fist through her skull.”

“Scared you that much, huh?”

Grimmjow didn’t answer, but his free arm caught Ichigo in a loose headlock for a moment. With his tiny cero to light the way in truly horrifying shades of bloody red, they proceeded down the corridor and into the asylum proper. If they walked together so closely their clothing brushed, neither of them was going to mention it. Ichigo sure as hell wasn’t.

They turned left by unspoken agreement, since the right-hand hallway was stacked with rusting beds and there was a bad-smelling dark fluid dripping off the twisted metal onto the floor. Ichigo kept his senses open for anything that might indicate there was a presence nearby. Whatever was in there with them had no reiatsu, so it definitely wasn’t caused by hollows. Nothing about it gave that impression, and Grimmjow’s twitchy reactions said he shared Ichigo’s hunch. It was an unquiet spirit—spirits. Mean ones. But what kind of ghosts could isolate zanpakutou energy and move them? That was something new and awful. Whatever was in there, it didn’t want to be sent to the afterlife, and that was a hell of a problem.

Ichigo was pondering what that could mean for them when Grimmjow walked face-first into a massive spiderweb and screeched like a cat with its tail stepped on.

“It’s in my mouth!” Grimmjow began doing some kind of terrified rain dance in the cero light. Ichigo plastered himself to the wall so he didn’t get hit by flailing limbs, watching interestedly as Grimmjow started ripping off his jacket and using it to bat at his face and chest. “Fucking  _fuck_  the living world! I hate this fucking place!”

Haunted asylum it might be, but Ichigo couldn’t deny there was some real entertainment value to be had when the ghosts weren’t attacking. Finally Grimmjow turned and glared at him poisonously, probably for witnessing the entire thing. The effect was ruined by the juicy black spider slowly climbing the wadded-up white cloth toward his hand. Ichigo jerked his chin at it. Grimmjow took one look, made a weird seal noise and threw the entire jacket on the floor. He jumped on it until something squished, then stomped on it twice for good measure. Finally he kicked it toward Ichigo, panting a little from the exertion. The spluttering cero in his palm stabilised, and for a moment Ichigo thought Grimmjow might throw it at him. Instead, he opened his mouth and said five horrible words.

“You’re walking in front now.”

Ichigo stiffened. “You’re the one with the light!”

“So?”

“So I’m not going to see the spiders!”

“Not my problem.”

There was no way in hell Ichigo was eating spiderwebs just because Grimmjow had a stupid phobia. He had to make a stand. Getting up right in his half-masked face, Ichigo opened his mouth to cuss him right out for being an asshole when his eyes spotted something just over Grimmjow’s shoulder. A large black shadow, moving independently of the light.

“Yeah, you know what, you stay behind,” Ichigo said seriously. “Watch my back. I’ll go on ahead a few paces.”

The suspicious squint he got wasn’t unwarranted, but Ichigo placidly began to walk ahead. He got about four paces away before he heard a rush of air and a bone-deep groan of misery. Grimmjow yipped like a nipped dog and threw his cero. The corridor lit up brilliant red for an instant, like the end of a weak flare burning out. Then it was dark again and all Ichigo could hear was horrified panting. Neither of them could see a thing.

Hands grabbed Ichigo’s uniform. This time he didn’t think twice before punching as hard as he could, just in case.

“Ow! It’s fuckin’ me!”

“Oh thank god.” Ichigo grabbed Grimmjow right back and let him crowd against him for a moment as their eyes slowly adjusted. “Hurry up and make another cero.”

“I can’t.” Red sparks spluttered around what was probably his hand. “Not yet. I wasn’t shitting you about the interference.” The words were almost pressed into Ichigo’s temple, panted on a breath that…smelled kind of like candy corn? “Gimme five to try again.”

“You have a cero refraction period? That’s so lame.”

“Shut up and walk.”

They practically hugged their way down the hall after that, free hands out like zombies to feel for any more webs or weird things. For a while the only thing they could hear was the distant howl of wind outside and the rattle of hard rain against the windows. Their footsteps were almost silent: tip-toeing their way in hopes nothing would hear them in the dark. Ichigo’s fist clenched in the thin fabric of Grimmjow’s jumpsuit, somewhere near his ribs.

“Can’t you usually see in the dark? You know, like a cat?”

Grimmjow just grunted.

“Grimmjow?”

“In my resurrección form, yeah. Exciting fact about being an arrancar, Kurosaki: all the good stuff’s locked away in my sword.” Fingers pinched Ichigo’s hip. “Which is outside with your fuckin’ bankai.”

“I don’t think my bankai would help in here. These things aren’t hollows. I don’t know what kind of spirits they are.” Swallowing, Ichigo told Grimmjow about the IV tube guy and felt him slowly turn rigid against his side. “And the voice when I got here knew my name. It’s like it was in my mind.”

For a long moment Grimmjow didn’t say anything, and they continued to shuffle down the hall toward the next turn. There were rooms coming off the arterial hallway, but they wouldn’t lead to anything except untold horror, probably. Those were patient rooms—rooms with locks on them, probably. Big, rusty locks and doors that could slam shut on them and never open again.

“It called me by my other name.” Grimmjow was as tense as a living statue beside him. “No-one’s said that name for more’n a hundred years.”

Other name. Despite the horrible nature of their night, excitement budded in Ichigo’s chest.

“Your human name? What was it?”

“Fuck off.”

“Can I guess?”

“No.”

“It’ll pass the time.”

“No.” Grimmjow twitched. “Yeah, okay.”

“Bert.”

“No.”

“Ernie.”

“No!”

“Kermit?”

“What the fuck?”

“Elmo. It’s gotta be Elmo.”

They were bickering about it when they rounded a corner and came face to face with a woman holding a swaddled baby. She didn’t look too bad; wearing a ragged hospital shift, her long hair greasy and tangled. No maggots this time. Her body glowed with a yellow internal light.

“Fuck,” Grimmjow muttered. In the ghostlight his eyes were washed out green. “Kurosaki, punch her.”

“What?” he hissed. “Why me?”

“You’ve been punching me all night, fuckin’ stick your fist into her instead.”

Ichigo felt queasy. The woman was just standing there with her head bowed. In her arms, the blanket-wrapped bundle was unmoving.

“I’m not punching a mother, even a ghost one. I’m not that kind of guy.” Ichigo fidgeted for a moment. “You do it. Get her in the throat.”

With a disgusted sound of impatience, Grimmjow let go of him and cracked his knuckles loudly. Ichigo’s side was immediately cold where his hand had been. Winding up with a grim, resigned air, Grimmjow took a single step forward.

“Bad luck, lady—”

With a gritty, full-throated shriek of horror, the woman threw the bundle in her arms straight at their faces.

It wasn’t a baby. The blanket was seething with hundreds of chittering, clicking cockroaches.

They rained over Ichigo’s face, his chest, his neck. One tried to twitch its glossy, sharp-legged body into the corner of his mouth. His entire body flooded with appalled adrenaline. Screaming, clawing at himself, trying to rip off his clothes, Ichigo was in a frenzy of terror. Bugs, bugs in his clothes, down his back, in his hair, clicking little chittering nightmares trying to get inside him—

“Kurosaki! What the fuck are you—” Hands grabbed his wrists hard. Ichigo broke free, kicking out blindly. He had to check his ears, his uniform, his sleeves—

The hospital wall was cold and solid against his back. Air punched out of his lungs in a rush. The hands on his chest were pushing almost hard enough to bruise ribs. Ichigo gasped hard and stared wildly into the darkness. He couldn’t see a thing, but the hands were Grimmjow. Had to be Grimmjow.

A mouth touched his ear, realer than anything Ichigo had felt a moment ago.

“It ain’t real, moron. Whatever you just saw.”

Ichigo was practically hyperventilating. “You. You didn’t?”

“Nope. She blinked out and you went insane.” Pulling away abruptly, Grimmjow tried for another cero. This time he managed it, but it was still a tiny little orb of light. Red light. Horrible, blood-red light. He held it up to Ichigo’s face. “You look like ass.”

Shaken right down to his core, Ichigo couldn’t think of a single comeback or witty response. His skin tingled and he knew his eyes were too wide, staring up into Grimmjow’s. The hand on his chest flexed a little. Grimmjow glanced away down the hall.

“Guess this one was your nightmare. C’mon.”

Sweat was cold on his skin and his hands were shaking a little, but Ichigo managed to swallow and haul in a deep breath. Not real, he told himself. Stupid illusions. Illusions that felt real. Psychological warfare. Maybe it sustained itself on fear. Ichigo chewed on his lip. If it did, he’d probably just given it a banquet. Fucking cockroaches. Bugs. The whole thing was messed up, and he was pretty sure he’d actually drawn his own blood scratching at his skin like that. His neck felt sticky.

When Grimmjow gave him a curt nod and started down the hallway again, Ichigo followed. He was pretty sure Grimmjow slowed down on purpose to put them side by side again and felt stupidly grateful for it. Not that he could ever say so.

“Think I’m onto how this thing works,” Grimmjow said after a twitchy silence. Ichigo was watching the ceiling, the walls and the floor for any kind of movement, still scratching absently up his sleeves. “Since you saw some kind of terrifying shit and I didn’t, I’d say it’s pulling stuff out of our heads to scare us.” When Ichigo just looked at him, he added, “the woman on the bed that I saw looked like someone I used to know. Before.”

“Before,” Ichigo repeated, full to bursting with questions about Grimmjow’s life in the great mysterious before. He frowned as a thought occurred to him. “It used your old name, and an old face. What if—what if it can only access your human memories? And mine? Isn’t that kind of specific?” His own fears were a lot more current, numerous and horrible, considering he was still a human every other day of the week. Grimmjow’s were, in his own words, a hundred years old. What would scare someone from back then?

Huh. Maybe everything. But surely Grimmjow had a century of being a hollow to chase those out.

“Let’s find out,” was all Grimmjow said, his jaw tight. “Last one took five minutes before another one came. If they’re timed, we’ll know soon.”

With a burgeoning plan in place, and maybe a pattern to the whole thing, Ichigo felt his shoulders straighten. If they couldn’t be hurt by the apparitions, they’d be fine. They’d just power through them all until the source was found, and then…and then what? With Zangetsu outside he couldn’t perform konsou. Maybe Grimmjow really would have to eat it.

They came to another corridor like a t-intersection and halted just before entering it. There was a strange set to Grimmjow’s shoulders. Sweat glistened on his hairline. Ichigo wondered if he really should go first, but god, he really didn’t want to. Not after the roaches. His fears were all weird stupid shit, but they scared him all the same. Grimmjow liked to present himself as tough and pragmatic, but if fear could carry through the regained human memory of an arrancar, maybe the reaction to it could too. It’d explain why he didn’t want to take another step forward. He probably thought he was up next.

Well, Ichigo thought, tightening his sash with determination, maybe he owed Grimmjow one for shaking him out of it. He jumped forward into sight of the turn before Grimmjow’s reaching hand could catch him.

“Hey, ghost!” he yelled, voice obnoxiously loud. “It’s me, Ichigo!” Dizziness trembled at the edges of his vision, but he couldn’t stop. “Remember when I was thirteen and I had crippling recurrent nightmares about the school’s toilet cubicle doors disappearing the moment I sat down? Remember that?” Nerves jangling like wind chimes in a storm, he swung in the other direction of the massive corridor, ignoring Grimmjow’s floored stare. “Remember when I ate chow mein the same night I watched a horror marathon at Keigo’s house, and I couldn’t eat cooked cabbage for three years without remembering Michael Myers coming to kill Laurie in the wardrobe? Remember that?”

Breathing hard, knowing he was probably a bit crazy-eyed in the light of the cero, Ichigo saw movement at the end of the new corridor. Something was sparking with a pus-coloured light, but it didn’t look like anything that had appeared so far. He was desperately glad when Grimmjow jumped behind him, even if it was, well, behind him. The light was bubbling and sparking like something unstable, something boiling over with energy.

“Fuck this,” Grimmjow said tightly, and turned around.

He was putting their backs together, Ichigo realised with a fierce and sudden appreciation, and facing down the other end of the hallway. Reaching back, not even sure why he was doing it, Ichigo slipped his elbows in the bend of Grimmjow’s, linking them together.

Then, Grimmjow began to speak.

“Remember when Leon from the end of the street cut his hand on a rusty fence, and his entire arm swelled up an’ stank because they didn’t have money for medicine?” Grimmjow’s voice was tense enough to snap like piano wire. “They made me squeeze out the muck because his ma had to work a double shift! Remember that? Remember how he fuckin’ screamed and told me to kill him ‘cause of the pain and I didn’t fuckin’ do it? Remember how it took him _six days to die?!_ ” Against Ichigo’s back, he was practically vibrating with strain. “Remember when Marta kept having kid after kid after kid and I had to take the bloody pan out behind the sheds every time? Remember when I had the hole half full of dirt when one of the damn things screamed?”

Oh fuck, Ichigo thought, his throat caught with the horror of what he was saying. This was—this was old stuff. Things he couldn’t imagine, things that didn’t happen in developed places like modern Karakura. No wonder Grimmjow hadn’t wanted to step forward with memories likes those. But he had. At the other end of the new corridor lights were sparking there, too. And both of them stood between the two, shouting all the dumb and terrible fears they could spew out in the shortest amount of time. If they could split it up, confuse it, give it something to really chew on—but he didn’t have anything like that. All except for one.

Ichigo squeezed his eyes shut.

“Remember when I laid under my mother’s dead body for an hour and half thinking she’d wake up? Remember when the paramedics pulled her away and her mouth and eyes were still open?” The arms linking his tightened behind him. He felt sick. “Remember how I grabbed her hair so hard to keep her with me that it—that some of it—” He couldn’t finish his sentence.

The lights were building, swelling, growing blinding with the amount of disgust and fear they were dredging up out of it. If they could overload it, blow its fuses, they could get the hell out. But the price of doing that, of thinking of those old locked-up things again, maybe it was even worse than the stupid ghosts and bugs. But they’d started, and Ichigo was going to finish it. Who the hell cared if he never slept again? From the sounds of Grimmjow’s fears, he’d have company. Company was enough.

The lights started taking on shapes, strange distorted things that were half something familiar, half something wrong. Ichigo’s back was sweating right through against Grimmjow’s. Their bones almost groaned with the pull of each other.

“On three,” Ichigo said hoarsely, as he recognised the trailing waves of long hair belonging to his mother. “On three.”

The ghostly energy coalesced, and like the firing of a cannon came hurtling toward them both, one at each end of the long hallway.

Sick and yellow and green, the swirling mess of half-made fears shot straight toward them—

_“Three!”_

Ichigo hauled hard on Grimmjow’s arms—

—and they spun around to face not their own fears, but each other’s.

The light frayed and warped. Inside it something unholy screamed in many voices. Ichigo saw a boy no older than seven with a bloated blue face and one arm. He saw tiny infants, too small to survive, covered in blood and reaching with tiny hands. He saw spiders and split egg sacs tumble over the faces of people he didn’t recognise, wearing clothes from another time. On and on it went, a cascading tidal wave of things that meant nothing to him, things that sparked and stretched with the confusion and swirling, ongoing mess of fear and revulsion it was feeding on.

When it detonated around them, Ichigo’s eyes burned with the pure white light of something that passed through his skin and his mind, the same way it had at the front door when it took his swords. Maybe that was how it got him, he thought faintly, how it read him the first time.

Eventually, finally, the light disappeared, leaving the corridor stinking of ozone and burnt plastic. It was dark as night in there, which meant Grimmjow had lost his cero again. Ichigo felt carved out and empty, like something had reached in and scraped him clean. Kind of like a Halloween pumpkin, he thought blankly, and didn’t know why the hell he laughed. Nothing should have been funny in that moment. Against his back, hooked inside his aching arms, Grimmjow was strangely shaky.

“Fucking cabbages,” he said, a tremor in his voice. There was vibration rolling through the shoulders pressed against his. “There were actual cabbages in that shit just now, Kurosaki. You weren’t kidding.”

Unbelievably, Ichigo’s mouth twitched.

“Look, I was twelve, and…no. You’re right, it’s stupid.”

“Cabbages, toilet doors, cockroaches, and your mother with a chunk of hair missing. Seriously, Kurosaki. No wonder you feel like you can take on the whole fuckin’ world.”

“Shut up, spider baby tidal wave.”

“Fuck off, one of those egg bags fell off the ceiling and onto my face one time.”

Ichigo wasn’t giving him that one. Then he thought of something.

“The woman you said you saw on the stretcher before—was that Marta?”

Silence behind him. Ichigo thought he should have probably let go by then. Both of them should have. They were sweating so much they’d practically glued together. Instead he tipped his head back and felt a damp scalp touch his own.

“Sure looked like her,” Grimmjow said quietly, letting out a breath that sounded like it came from the soles of his feet. When he spoke again, his voice was exhausted. Almost plaintive. “Hell with this place, Kurosaki. Where are we?”

“Old abandoned Karakura psychiatric hospital,” Ichigo said, feeling almost equally as tired. “Looking for the boogieman.” More than anything he wanted to sit down and lean on Grimmjow for a while longer, but it was pitch dark and they had to keep going. “Left or right?”

“Left. Cabbage town looks safer to me.”

“Oh, fuck off.” With an actual, surprisingly painful release of his joints and muscles, Ichigo let go of Grimmjow’s arms and pulled away slowly. “But you know, after that I can probably face anything this place can throw at us.”

Ichigo meant it as a confession of his own, feeling like he’d lanced an old wound he’d never really touched before, but when Grimmjow lit another cero and it doubled in size compared to before, the narrowed eyes that stared down into his were surprisingly clear and calm. When he grabbed Ichigo in that weird loose headlock thing again and jiggled him a little there was no resistance. Just two dirty, dusty, sweaty warriors trying not to piss their pants in a hospital full of apparently harmless ghosts trying to send them both insane.

Cool.

The next few winding corridors were a cake walk. Sure, some weird shit happened, but the tempest in the corridor intersection seemed to have shaken the worst out of them. All that was left was some surprisingly common weirdness and a few things that were flat-out hilarious to the other. Their fears weren’t separate anymore, Ichigo quickly realised. What Grimmjow saw, Ichigo saw too. And vice versa. That became apparent the moment they walked past a patient room only to have the door burst open, revealing a glowing, naked old man that resembled Captain-Commander Yamamoto a lot. He helicoptered his dick at them a few times and then jumped through a wall.

“Was that yours or mine,” Grimmjow asked, sounding worried. Ichigo pretended he hadn’t heard him.

It continued in that vein for a while. They took a wrong turn into a large room lined with small stacked lockers and almost passed straight through the visage of an angry middle-aged woman chugging an entire bottle of ghost scotch in her underwear.

“Definitely mine,” Grimmjow said flatly, grabbing Ichigo’s shoulders and steering him back out of the room. The locker doors shivered and slammed behind them like chattering teeth. Ichigo didn’t ask any questions, and the expression on Grimmjow’s half-masked face said he didn’t want any.

It was down one short, blank-walled hallway that Ichigo thought about taking a breather. Before he could tell himself to press on, he leaned against the wall and took a couple of strong, deep breaths with his eyes shut. Across from him a large, high glass window was spidered with cracks, its metal grate firmly intact but still letting some stronger moonlight in. The clouds had moved, he realised with some curiosity. The rain had stopped at some point. He thought about telling Grimmjow about his observation when he heard plastic rustle beside him.

“What’s that crackling sou—are you eating a lollipop?”

“Yeah. So?”

Ichigo had never heard of hollows actually eating human food before. He blinked.

“…can I have one?”

Grimmjow gave him a deeply suspect look. Reaching up, he pulled the candy out of his mouth with a wet pop and held it out to him. It smelled like artificial grape flavouring.

“Only one I got.”

Figuring they’d crossed enough bridges together, and Grimmjow sure hadn’t almost eaten any ghost roaches, Ichigo grabbed the stick out of his fingers and shoved the lollipop into his mouth. The sugar coating his tongue quickly overtook the uncertain, hot rush of interest he got watching Grimmjow stare at his mouth like that. It really, really wasn’t the place. They were just sharing candy like two unlikely allies stuck together in the trenches. He sucked on it for a minute or two, then handed it back over.

“Gross,” Grimmjow said immediately, staring at the saliva-slick offering. “Germs, Kurosaki. Germs.”

“Same germs you’d get from anyone’s mouth,” Ichigo said, shrugging. “But okay.”

He had the lollipop an inch from his lips when it was snatched away. Ichigo looked up with impatient annoyance to see it was back with Grimmjow, who was swirling it around in his mouth like a deviant. Weird fucker. He wasn’t sure what mental hoops he’d just jumped through, but it meant he didn’t have any candy anymore. But Grimmjow had mentioned returning later to steal candy, which meant…

“Hey! Cut it out!”

Ichigo didn’t cut it out. He kept patting down Grimmjow’s hips, looking for pockets that might be full of ill-gotten sugary treats. With a precious cero in one hand and a lollipop to guard with the other, Grimmjow could only shimmy away from him and try to gain some distance. Ichigo followed like a hound on the hunt.

“I stole it all fair and square!”

“Yeah, and now I’m stealing it from you.”

“Like hell you are.”

That was how they ended up running through a large portion of the remaining asylum, leaping over broken beds and used syringes scattered everywhere, blasting through the few apparitions and out into what seemed to be an enormous recreation area. They both slowed down as they reached it, their game momentarily forgotten.

“Whoa. Where’d they get the budget for this place?”

It was as big as a ballroom, scattered with dirty tables and overturned chairs. There was dirt and leaves all over the floor. The ceiling was wreathed in long grey cobwebs and there were some awful looking smears on the cracked and crumbling walls, but what really took Ichigo’s attention were the glass double doors on the other side of the room.

The half-open double doors. Fresh, rain-scented air was blowing gently through the gap, telling Ichigo that yes, it was really open. Freedom, if they could get to it.

“Well that’s a trap,” Grimmjow said flatly, echoing Ichigo’s every sentiment. He was also crunching on the remains of the lollipop with spiteful relish. To Ichigo, he smelled like fake grapes, sugar and hot sweat. It should have been a repulsive combination, but…

“Wanna hold hands?” Ichigo asked with a wry quirk of his mouth. He held out his left hand, fingers wiggling. “It’d be a shame to leave you behind in here.”

He meant it to rile Grimmjow a little, but Ichigo felt his chest lurch when his fingers were grabbed without hesitation and squeezed hard. His smile faded, only to be replaced by a different one he had trouble keeping under control.

What a night.

“On three?” Grimmjow asked, and took a single step forward.

It was one step too many. Like a front line of soldiers every single ghost the asylum had pulled from their minds sprang up in shifting, glowing lights the colour of sickness, death and despair. Washed out, dreadful things with mournful, malevolent faces and reaching hands. A blockade between them and the door.

Ichigo saw his mother in the line of them, right in the middle where he’d have to pass through. Oddly, he didn’t feel anything. It wasn’t her. He’d never see her again—the fisher had seen to that. His goodbyes were done. They were over. The world had thrown the worst at him and he’d made it through. One line of old memories wasn’t going to stop him, no matter how his guts clenched and his mouth trembled. Pulling his shoulders up and back, he looked across at Grimmjow.

“Want me to take yours again?”

A rumpled blue head shook, throwing tendrils of hair across his brow.

“Nah. Think I’ve got it this time.”

“Same here,” Ichigo said, “though I kind of wish I didn’t.” The clench of warm fingers around his was painfully tight, and it understood. Ichigo squeezed right back as they tensed for the final assault.

_selfish boy, always running ahead_

Ichigo stiffened. Nope, not this time. Not ever again.

“Three?” he croaked.

Grimmjow nodded slowly.

“Three.” He threw his cero into the centre of the spirit line with a rush of heat and light—

Then they were charging forward, crushing grip between them, breaking through the line of seething insects, corpses, memories and fear. Voices broke through his mind again and again, one after the other after the other until they were a garbled mess of resentment and hate, an indictment against his entire existence. But Grimmjow was yanking on his hand, falling behind slightly, his eyes wild and searching. The boy had him around the waist, one arm and little blunt teeth clamped on his side. Leon.

“Sorry kid,” Ichigo rasped, and booted the spirit boy right in the dick. He went flying into the far wall with a screech, splattering against the concrete. “Grimmjow’s got places to be.”

He could feel bad about it later.

They surged ahead again, the doors rushing up to greet them. Grimmjow returned the favour a moment later when the IV guy swung his tube around Ichigo’s neck and started pulling it tight. They were definitely corporeal this time, Ichigo thought blindly, his airway closing in one hard yank. Grimmjow just reached over and grabbed the trailing end of tubing in his fist, not bothering to loosen it from Ichigo’s neck, and unspooled it from the spirit’s mouth like he was a hose reel as they ran.

“Who the hell eats this shit,” Grimmjow snarled, winding it around his fist for grip. “You know this fucker?”

“I—think so,” Ichigo panted, trying to loosen the loops around his neck. “Don’t remember his face, but he was old. At the hospital they took me to after my mother died, before Dad came. Kept—pacing with his IV stand. Said he liked my face.”

Grimmjow didn’t appear to care beyond that, swinging a long leg out and burying the tip of his boot into the mush of the spirit’s maggot-eaten face. The tube snapped and vanished along with the man, letting Ichigo haul in a long, rasping breath of beautiful fresh air.

When they burst through the double doors and tumbled out together into wet leaves and rain-drenched grass, the entire building glowed green and yellow from every window. It painted the overgrown hedges around, illuminating the grounds for as far as Ichigo could see. Being that he was flat on his back with Grimmjow caging him in what almost looked like a protective gesture, that wasn’t a whole lot.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Grimmjow was chanting to himself as the light grew piercing, blinding. “If this place explodes, Kurosaki, I—”

“I like you a lot too,” Ichigo said, patting around Grimmjow’s hips again for his pockets. This time, he found one, shoving his hand in deep and grabbing some single-wrapped hard candy.

“Fuck _off!_ "

Grimmjow was shaking his hips and slapping Ichigo’s hands when enormous colourful streamers and confetti blew out of every window in the asylum, raining down on them both in torrents of cheap rainbow snowflakes.

Then came the glitter. Finer than sand, it sifted through Grimmjow’s hair and onto Ichigo’s face and chest, sticking to his sweaty collarbones where his shihakushou had parted in the struggle. The whole world was a multicoloured tornado of confusing celebration, and Grimmjow’s eyes were blindingly blue as he stared down at him, absolutely wordless with shock.

Finally, an envelope fluttered down, hitting Grimmjow in the back of the head. Ichigo grabbed it and opened it with shaking fingers, not even bothering to get up. What he read turned his stomach to pure acid.

> _Congratulations, Kurosaki Ichigo, on passing the first annual Gotei 13 practical psychological evaluation!_
> 
> _Kurotsuchi Mayuri offers his sincerest thanks for assisting with the test phase, and invites you to join him in the twelfth division barracks at your earliest convenience for some invasive follow-up testing…_

It went on and on like that for a while, until Ichigo wasn’t sure if there was a minor earthquake or his heart really was hammering that hard.

A test.

It was a fucking test. All of it.

Grimmjow ripped the letter out of his hand and scanned it. His eyes widened when he got to the important bits, and slowly narrowed into slits as the rest sank in. The acrid stink of smoke followed pretty quickly as the paper was vaporised in his hand.

“Fucking hate shinigami,” Grimmjow said finally, rolling off Ichigo to sprawl on the wet grass beside him. In the remaining light of the hospital he was a rainbow of glittering, exhausted rage. “I didn’t even get a letter.”

“Your priorities are wrong,” Ichigo said thinly, shoving a pink starburst candy into his mouth. “God, I’m tired. I don’t think I’ll ever sleep again.”

“Yeah.”

Ichigo chewed in silence for a while.

“Hey, you think that IV guy was a pedo?”

Grimmjow made an angry sound and kicked his ankle.

“Your subconscious thought so. Fuckin’ plastic tube bondage no-face man. I’m sure he was a real nice guy in life, Kurosaki.”

“I will not be criticised by a guy whose worst fears include babies.” Ichigo tossed his empty wrapper in what he hoped was the direction of Grimmjow’s face. He was honestly too tired to move. Adrenaline crash, maybe. He blinked up at the stars. “Hey, the moon’s out.”

It was a good moon; brilliant, round and white, hanging heavy in the sky above them. Seeing it made Ichigo believe he was really out of that hellhole. Psychological exam. Kurotsuchi was going to pay, and pay, and pay—

Grimmjow sat up in the short, desperate rush of someone running on very little energy. With a fold of his long legs beneath him, he staggered unevenly to his feet. Under the sparkling decorations smeared over his face, he looked paler than usual.

“You going?” Ichigo asked, blinking up at him. Grimmjow nodded shortly.

“Gotta get Pantera from the front steps, then I’m getting the fuck out of his place.”

“All right.” Ichigo didn’t bother to get up. “Sorry about tonight. I don’t think you were meant to get caught in it.”

“No shit.”

“But I’m glad you were.”

Grimmjow frowned. “Wishing trauma on me now? Cute.”

“No. You saved me in there, Grimmjow. A couple of times.” Pushing himself up with a groan, Ichigo thought about how much to say to him when he was obviously eager to leave as fast as he could. “What happened in there, all that stuff…I’ll never tell anyone about it. I swear.” When he got to his feet he weaved a little, catching his balance at the last second. He tried for his most earnest expression. “But can I still call you Elmo?”

Ichigo was able to duck that clawed hands coming for his throat with only a little difficulty, but that was mostly because he was laughing at the look of outrage on Grimmjow’s shining rainbow-dusted face. It was stuck in the teeth of the mask, his frowny little eyebrows, his hair, even on the tip of his nose. Ichigo could only imagine what he looked like. When he couldn’t dart away again, ribs aching from laughter and the entire night’s exertions, Grimmjow gave him a solid headbutt—and then just sort of stayed there; itchy, glittery noses aligned, eyes staring into each other with unfocused proximity. This time when Ichigo reached out for Grimmjow’s waist, he wasn’t trying for his candy pocket. He just held on, feeling the warmth of his skin soaking through the thin black fabric. After the night they’d had, it didn’t feel like he was crossing any boundaries. It felt right.

Just like it felt right when Grimmjow’s grape-flavoured, glittery mouth grazed over his own. Just once, just lightly.

“Thanks for having my back in there.” The words were awkward, a little rough. Ichigo thought maybe Grimmjow didn’t thank many people. “You were fucking insane, running out in the hallway like that, screaming about toilets and cabbage.”

“Hey, it worked, didn’t it?” Ichigo’s hands squeezed a little. “We worked. Together.”

“Yeah.”

“Sorry you got hit with ghost toilet doors.”

Grimmjow snorted. “Apologise for the fuckin’ roaches first. Clicky little smooth fuckers.” He didn’t seem interested in actually getting his apology though; his hands were crossing over Ichigo’s back to wrap around him. A moment more, and his chin had sunk down to rest on Ichigo’s shoulder, tired and comfortable. It gave Ichigo an idea.

“Sleep with me tonight.”

No, that hadn’t come out quite right.

“Okay,” Grimmjow yawned, scratching his nose against his uniform. “Gonna need some sleep first though. And a shower.”

Face burning, Ichigo opened his mouth to clarify what he meant. Then, after a moment’s consideration, he slowly closed it.

At the very least, he’d have someone other than Kon to wrap around in the middle of the night when the whole ordeal came rushing back to him. Part of him was also wondering what Grimmjow would feel and taste like once the candy faded and the glitter came off. It was pure accident that they’d gone through that horror together, but it had left them with the strangest insight into each other that the stupid fake parameters of the evening couldn’t erase. Ichigo now knew things about Grimmjow. Old things. Treasured and terrible things.

Ichigo wondered what else he’d find out, given enough time.

“Let’s go get our swords.”

**Author's Note:**

> i mean, mayuri _would_ make a nightmare field exercise using illusions of everything you ever feared, and then call it an eligibility exam for your own good


End file.
